Arsenal Links

O' Fabregas Where art thou?

There isn’t a great deal happening in the wonderful world of Arsenal Football Club per se but today does in fact mark the beginning of an exciting yet equal testing week ahead for the club. Despite the upcoming games against Celtic midweek followed by those foul mancs, all talk still seems to be revolving around the Portsmouth Game (Rightly So).

John Utaka, claims to have been tripped by Gallas and our number ten then admitted to have committed the foul as well. He says:

“I asked Gallas and he said to me it was a foul. What can you say to that? It’s like everything is going against us. He was smiling, he knew it was a foul but it wasn’t his decision. It could have been 2-2, the game could have gone either way, but he then scored at the other end.”

“It was a foul because he pulled me from behind after I ran past him – he pulled me back. It was unfortunate the linesman didn’t raise his flag. I was shocked because on a good day it would have been given. We were unlucky and nothing was given.”

I’m not at all convinced, TV replays show Utaka clearly tripped over himself and both the linesman and the referee got it spot on, I can quite honestly label this the rant of a “skittish” klutz and nothing more.

I was reading around and I’d fancy we’d be finding out about the extent of Cesc’s injury either by today or by tomorrow. Senor Cesc has been speaking about his injury and blames Celtic for his predicament, he had the following to say:

“You never expect someone will kick you three or four times in the same place, which was my right ankle, but sometimes that happens. You have to accept it and all you can do is stand up to it, refuse to let it affect you and keep playing football. But I did have quite a few bruises after that game in Glasgow.”

You can’t argue with that, the overly physical approach by Celtic was poor and we’re lucky it isn’t anything more serious than I already is. The need for Fabregas at this critical juncture is immense and especially seeing as we’re a little light when it comes to replacing such a player, we’re really at odds. After such an impressive start to the season, we need to maintain it and that means taking those mancs down and doing it in style. It’s not an easy task but you can’t also argue with the fact that we’re fully capable of doing so and how important fabregas is to this cause. Fingers crossed our captain fantabolous can make it back as soon as possible, we are really going to miss him should this injury prolong.

Meanwhile, Arshavin has been talking about the dressing room talks Wenger had with the team during the half time team talk in the game against Portsmouth. Arshavin had this to say:

“We started the meeting well. I think that our two quick goals went a long way in deciding the game. Arsenal’s possession advantage allowed us to enjoy the game … Perhaps, after the second goal, we relaxed a bit. Arsène in the locker room told us about this. He reminded us that in the Premier League you cannot afford to be relaxed, because if you prematurely stop to fully concentrate on the game, this will immediately be followed by retaliation by the opponents.”

There isn’t any denying this fact that complacency has been the death of us in seasons past and it is alarming to see the signs of it so early in the season, but I’m hopeful the boss can sort them out.

Speaking of sorting out, we have roughly 7 days to go before the close of the transfer window. There isn’t a secret that we need to dip into the transfer kitty and buy us a player and there’s no secret where we need reinforcing either. We have had a few defensive scares in the games we’ve played so far and you can only imagine what better teams could do to us in that area. The boss has to sort it out and there aren’t any excuses not to either.

Finally, Tony Mowbray has been talking about the upcoming game against us and says he’s already picked his team;

“But I am pretty clear in my mind what my team will be next Wednesday. I understand that if we lose 2-0 again, I will be judged to have got the team wrong again but if we win 3-0 then hopefully everyone will be pretty happy.”

Kudos to you then, the article goes on and if you feel like reading it, here’s where you can do it.